A little cyber car show... Sporadically updated, Just A Car Geek is an old school blog that focuses on relatively inexpensive, unusual, rare and forgotten cars. Lots of opinions, links to cool and interesting sites, useless & useful trivia, cars for sale, news, a few stories and more... This is not your typical car blog...
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Sunday, January 12, 2014

1991 BMW 325iX - BMW sent us less than 3000 325iX cars from 1988 through 1991. BMW never spent a lot of time or money promoting these cars. It was almost as if the sold them just so they could say, "Yeah, Audi has AWD cars, but we have an AWD car, too."

The sad thing is that it's every bit as good (and in many ways better) than its Audi competitor, the Audi 90 Quattro. Road & Track, in their November 1988 "Snow Test" wrote this, "Our acceleration champ was the iX. The AWD BMW was a blink quicker than the Quattro." In the hill climb, R&T noted, "Once again, the BMW AWD system proved superior to the Quattro arrangement."

Like all E30 BMWs, the 325iX is incredibly reliable. Not a whole lot goes wrong with them. The one big issue - unique to the 325ix - is rust. Road salt, mud and "gunk" get trapped between the body and the 325iX-exclusive ground effects panels. The most common place rust to start is on the front fenders, behind the wheel well.

This 325iX looks like a nice driver. It has a few very minor issues, but nothing that would keep you from driving it right after buying it.

1988 Jeep Comanche - If I had the extra cash and extra room (a reoccurring theme in my life; it seems like when I have one, I don't have the other...) I'd be bidding on this truck.

The Comanchee was based on the Cherokee, with some modifications to the suspension and a subframe to hold the cargo box. Introduced in 1986 it was available with the same basic engine and transmission combos found in the Cherokee. It was available until 1992.
This is Comanche Laredo, meaning it has all of the "luxury" features found in the top of the line Cherokee.

In my lifetime, I have owned 3 Cherokees. From experience, I can tell you that the 4.0 liter 6 is powerful and damn-near indestructible. The AWD / 4WD systems found in them allow you to go through everything. All-in-all, they are pretty amazing vehicles.

Cherokee parts are dirt cheap and easy to find. The one exception is the Renix (created by Renault and Bendix) ignition / fuel delivery system. It's a very good system and fairly reliable, but parts are getting hard to find. Plus, diagnostics cannot be done with a standard OBD reader.

The one big issue with the Cherokee and Comanche is rust, especially in the (structural) rocker panels. If you find a rust free one (the seller does not mention any rust on this one), pump the rockers full of Waxoyl as soon as you buy it.

2 comments:

steve in podunk
said...

That's a nice Comanche but it's already over $7200 with reserve not met; yikes!It's been my experience with Cherokees, that usual cause for rust is water leaking into the cabin. The windshield gaskets will sometimes leak, water will get in through the blower housing and the seam sealer fails around the bulkhead behind the dash(an enormous pain to correct).Once the water gets in, it can't get out; it'll rot out the floors and water will accumulate in the roof rails and rot out the roof from the inside, I'd love to have a Comanche but for well over $7000, there's a lot of other trucks I'd rather have instead.

That's a nice Comanche but it's already over $7200 with reserve not met; yikes!It's been my experience with Cherokees, that usual cause for rust is water leaking into the cabin. The windshield gaskets will sometimes leak, water will get in through the blower housing and the seam sealer fails around the bulkhead behind the dash(an enormous pain to correct).Once the water gets in, it can't get out; it'll rot out the floors and water will accumulate in the roof rails and rot out the roof from the inside, I'd love to have a Comanche but for well over $7000, there's a lot of other trucks I'd rather have instead.

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